and his Excellency does so
with the more satisfaction, at this particular time, when the attention
of the Imperial Parliament is so especially drawn to the consideration
of the important subject of prison discipline, and when the state of
things in the colony has placed the local government in a situation to
contradict the unjust imputations which have been raised against
transportation as a punishment.

"By his Excellency's command,

"J. BURNETT."]

[Footnote 211: Backhouse and Walker's observations. This evil was
corrected on their representation.]

[Footnote 212: _Par. Papers._]

[Footnote 213: "The Rev. Dr. Bedford, in the course of his remarks,
stated that his duty had imposed upon him the painful task of attending
between three and four hundred executions, and that more than
nineteen-twentieths of the unhappy men who had thus miserably perished,
had been brought to this end by the effects of drunkenness."--_Courier_;
Speech at a meeting of the first Temperance Society at Hobart Town,
1832.

"It has fallen to our lot to be present at the executions of a large
proportion of the malefactors who have suffered the extremity of the law
in Hobart Town, and the apparent apathy with which the unhappy men met
their fate, was always to us the most humiliating part of the spectacle.
Their lips would utter with apparent sincerity the invocations prompted
by the clergyman, but the heart, that should have given them expression,
was too plainly wanting. They were empty sounds--the soul was gone. The
main part of the executioner's duty was performed to his hand; the
kernel was already consumed.... They sung psalms, ate a hearty meal:
they heard the summons of the sheriff; their arms were pinioned; the
halter was put about their neck; the cap was brought over their eyes,
and they dropped into eternity with more indifference than the ox goes
to the slaughter."--_V. D. Land Annual_; edited by Dr. Ross, 1833.]

[Footnote 214: 28th June, 1832.]

[Footnote 215: Despatch to Spring Rice.]

SECTION XVIII.

Governor Arthur held the reins of authority while considerable changes
transpired in the elder colony. Sir Thomas Brisbane, who succeeded
Macquarie, had chiefly attempted to diminish the expenditure, and in the
management of convicts had sought in the results of their labor, rather
than its detail, the success of transportation. Formed into gangs, they
were employed in clearing farms under the inspection of government